This invention relates to sewing machines.
A sewing machine is known from U.S. Pat. No. 1,242,403 which has a so-called skipping feed, which roughly performs a square movement. An upper feed means performing a movement of the same type is associated with this skipping feed. The skipping feed and the feed means are necessarily disengaged from the workpiece during the insertion of the needle thereinto and during looping during the upward movement of the needle. During this time a presser foot, resiliently displaceable against its drive, driven in the movement cycle and in the particular movement direction of the needle, is pressed from above against the workpiece, so that the latter is pressed against the throat plate or the base plate of the lower arm which surrounds it. Thus, in the vicinity of the stitching point, the workpiece is either fixed between the feed and the feed means or between the throat plate and the presser foot. The small-area construction of the presser foot is intended to ensure a relatively easy rotatability of the workpiece, in order to be able to follow major curves or angles of the seam to be produced.
German Patent Specification No. 399873 discloses a mending sewing machine, which does not have a feed dog. Its presser foot is in each case raised by the workpiece, when the needle has been removed therefrom and is engaged again when the needle is inserted. This enables the material to be moved, which is performed in a completely free manner by the operator and can be in a random direction.